This week I recieved one of the most thorough and well written applications to coffeed yet to be recieved. With permission, I am posting this to the board.

Please welcome Charlie Staley [beefybean] to Coffeed.

I have been a participating member of coffeeforums and specialty-coffee forum for about 9 months now. I came across coffeed.com during one of my many Google sessions, scouring the web for insightful information, beyond the marketing hype. I have been a single origin coffee fanatic for over 20 years. For the last 9 months, my wife and I have been working on opening our shop.

We are about to go to lease and are under contract with an architect for our build-out. We are incorporated in Texas as Belmont Coffee Company, currently not roasting, though someday..? I have secured my URL, but do not currently have an active website.

Our focus is not to merely be a coffee shop, capitalizing on the current industry growth. Yes, there is a component of that, it is an investment after all, but the idea is to provide an alternative quality location with top notch espresso drinks and coffee and to raise the level of understanding and/ or appreciation of the customers in the area.

The shop will be in the middle of an extremely affluent area near Austin. I have 3 Starbucks within a 3 mile radius. There are 60 coffee shops in Austin, 30 of which are Starbucks.

The value that I bring to coffeed.com? An alternate point of view. I have 20 years of experience in engineering, sales and marketing. Coupled with a heavy interest in cooking and coffee. I have taken numerous classes in cooking and in coffee. What does that bring me? An appreciation for things done right, things that taste right, understanding the ideal objective for a product of the senses. It is also balanced with the pragmatic perspective of return on investment, reaching out to the customer pulling them in and getting them to become not just regulars, but fanatics that will then go and sell your business for you.

I am detail oriented about my business, currently I am researching water systems. Having a finite budget, some engineering background and a desire for the best, I am pulling together the components of a system to reformulate my own water. I am not content to merely soften the hard water from my utility. I am not content to add polyphosphate to it. There is some great marketing material telling me to do both and material saying that both are bad, and that I should spend many thousands on a reformulated system. There are few unbiased sources that merely have the information on the pros and cons of the various methods. I find that there is little critical review available for a variety of issues in this business and I look to the forums to obtain much of this review. The various forums differ in their emphasis, and what I have seen here will be a valuable resource for me.

I have lurked this forum for a while. I see some balanced discussion, some good issues wrestled with. I see and recognize people who have achieved great success and are admired by many others in the industry. The discussions here go into some depth that I don't see anywhere else! and that is a great thing. There were a couple of threads here on the chemical constituencies of coffee, or the makeup of the roasting gases. These are the details that I want to start picking up and becoming familiar with.

I will keep the username that I already use on a couple of other boards. beefybean.

Jay:
You don't miss a beat.
Unfortunately, I won't be at Charlotte. Full time job, 3 kids, buildout about to start, etc., etc.. That and my wife is heading to her Moms for the weekend. Lost the toss.

I would dearly love to get to Charlotte, or any of the festivals. Just recieved a note today about a training class for regional barrista competitions in Dallas. Spoke to the organizer and found that TX is fairly inexperienced in these matters. Certainly seems to be the case with Austin. I wouldn't be surprised to see some stars out there, but as a culture, it is not happening yet.

Hi, Aaron. I won't be too far away. I'll be in Bee Cave at the new Shops at the Galleria. They just started The Galleria across the street. Sleepy town of 750 puts in megadevelopment. I live about 3 miles away. Just heard today that the Mermaid (who already has 1 shop .5 miles away and 2 others 3 miles away) is dropping a store across the street in said Galleria. I have about 1-2 years before that. But I will always have the AM side of the road versus any of their locations. Even so, that liquor license is looking good.

i'm up in new braunfels weekly servicing some newer wholesale bean accounts. my new wholesale account mgr and i are eyeing austin for some accounts as well. it's such a better cafe culture and vibe than san antonio.

i'll drop you a line if i'm going to be in austin, which i should be in the next couple weeks. would love to get up with you.